The 2018 National Sports Collectors Convention

Welcome old friends.  I thought i would honor the poll I ran on Twitter asking how you guys wanted to see my haul revealed.  The people have spoken.

I had a ridiculous run of fun things happen at the National aside from buying cards and getting cards from fellow collectors and bloggers.  I will start with that since it's about doing cool things with the hobby aside from spending a paycheck.

Sometimes you meet the right people out at a bar on a Thursday night and end up getting snuck into the autograph pavilion to meet one of your all-time favorites.

Other times you pay $70 to meet your idol who turns out to be all you could have hoped for in a short conversation of which I told him he was always my favorite player as a kid even though all my friends gave me hell for liking a Red Sox guy.  Also told him that was one of my favorite trades as a kid and still is to this day.

I saw a new stadium, Progressive Field and love that so much.  We sat in row two behind the dugout, so close to Albert and the Angels.  Best seats I have had to a baseball game in years.  Twas awesome.

Crossed many things off the Bucket List, including on non-hobby related item, The Christmas Story House and museum.  Well worth $11.  Thanks to Suzy for coming along and being my photographer.

Now my time at the National was spent walking around, chatting with old friends, meeting some new ones and of course searching for things to add to my 401K, I mean PC.  Not pictured are 164 Wade Boggs cards I picked up from a dude selling them at 100 for $10, same dude also had Jeter cards 15 for $10 of which I bought 30 including 6 of the same card. We will go in no particular order, I am not going through and labeling everything because we all know what is what.

The next four are all Jumbo cards.

In terms of city, Cleveland is not my favorite host.  IX Center is in the middle of no where, only food choices while at the show are in the convention center, and the food is TERRIBLE.  You can either Uber to other places or take shuttle back to hotel unless you rent a car.  I'm excited to go back to Chicago next year.  Gibsons, pizza, and ability to leave the convention center and walk to hotel, shopping and food/bars.

Overall, this is one of my favorite trips and how could it not be?

Any cool stories from your trip this year?  Let us know.  Any cool cards?  Also interested.

Retail break: 2014 Topps Series 2 Baseball

Twitter sent me on a hunt for cards today. It was supposed to be football cards as I saw that 2014 Score hit retail early. Instead, I wound up at Target looking at a card aisle with nothing relatively new.

Then I looked behind me and saw several stacked, sealed cardboard boxes. I took a key and ripped the yellow seal to peek inside, and found 2014 Topps Series 2 baseball. The box was filled with rack packs, blasters and hanger packs.

I picked up two blasters and two rack packs for Dan and me to open. But I wanted to show off a few cards before I dig into the blaster fully later on – I’ll probably even scan more cards from the break.

Highlights from the rack pack (the Joe Mauer card pictured above is the commemorative patch that came in the blaster):

I got five inserts/parallels in the rack pack including this 1989 Die-Cut mini of Albert Pujols (you're welcome, Marie).

Jeff Bagwell Breakout Moments insert.

Denard Span Gold parallel.

Sonny Gray The Future is Now insert.

Cody Ross Green Camo parallel (1 in 35 packs).

Crazy-eyed Hunter Pence.

Kelly Johnson was the only Yankee I pulled from all the packs I opened so far

I did open a few packs from the blaster, but not all. That's where the Joe Mauer card above came from. Here are the highlights from the three packs I opened.

Saberstars is Topps giving credit to sabremetrics statistics. On this case, Chris Davis is showing off his WAR of 6.8.

Billy Hamilton The Future is Now insert

I am sure Gordon Beckham can throw it better than that.

Topps still working those Future Stars.

A Mets rookie.

Brian Wilson and his beard.

Chris Carter looking good with the shades.

That catcher does NOT look happy.

My first attempt at grading cards

I made my first attempt at grading cards several months ago.

I call it an attempt because I didn’t go as well as I hoped. I wouldn’t say I was disappointed though because I didn’t grade the card to sell. These cards are not leaving my collection, and I had them graded to put in protective cases.

However, I still wanted good grades!

I thought I looked over the cards well, checked centering, the corners and edges. I didn’t see any marks on the surface. I thought I had 9s or better.

Turns out, it takes better eyes than I have to find good grades.

The only one I knew wouldn't get a top notch grade is the card pictured above. The 1993 SP Rookie Card is a must-have for Derek Jeter collectors, but when I took this card out of the protective casing I bought it in, I noticed surface scratches. In this case, I just wanted the "authentic" label on it so it could protect the card. 

Here are some of my other grades. 

1993 Upper Deck RC Derek Jeter

 1993 Topps RC Derek Jeter

1993 Stadium Club Murphy RC Derek Jeter

This one received the best grade of all the Jeter RCs I sent in. 

1993 Select RC Derek Jeter

1993 Pinnacle RC Derek Jeter

This one really hurt. I felt I definitely had a 9 on this one. But, I didn't notice a slight surface wrinkle on the back of the card, which pushed the grade way, way down 

Not all my graded cards were of Jeter. Here are two Rookie Cards, a 2001 Upper Deck MVP Ichiro and a 2001 Bowman Jose Reyes. 

I saved the best for last. 

2001 Bowman RC Albert Pujols

I do have a second batch of graded cards. I did slightly better on those, but that's for another post.